Comments on: Don’t Stereotype Your Customers

By: Glenn (Customer Service Experience) Ross

Glenn (Customer Service Experience) Ross — Wed, 21 Feb 2007 01:15:12 +0000

The danger in profiling a “typical customer” is that the reality may well be that there are eight different typical customers, each representing a separate segment of your customers. Three may be female, five male, six may prefer bricks and mortar, three may prefer online or catalog,etc.
For many businesses there may be no “typical” customer, any more than there is a typical American or a typical South African.

By: Dawud Miracle

Dawud Miracle — Tue, 20 Feb 2007 17:55:07 +0000

This is why I feel why focusing on problem/solution is more important than on specific client demographics. As long as people are having the problems you can help them with, you’ll have business.

By: Tammy Strnatka

Tammy Strnatka — Tue, 20 Feb 2007 17:10:28 +0000

Have you heard of thin slicing yet?
Mike Wagner at http://www.ownyourbrand.com/ started a thin slicing meme
Check out my first thin slice at my blog.
Lewis, I am sorry but Starbucks in Tucson is so lame. I never have a great experience.

By: Lewis Green

Lewis Green — Tue, 20 Feb 2007 14:26:05 +0000

Gerry,
Know what your customers look like: It’s the first brick in the foundation of business.
I have an April presentation coming up in Dallas called “Add Some Profit to Your Next Latte: Learnings from Starbucks and Life
Getting the Attention of Small Businesses. My second story unfolds like this:
If you walked into any Starbucks store or into the Starbucks Support Center in Seattle and picked any employee at random, then asked: What does a Starbucks customer look like? They might respond with something like this:
“Our typical customer is a woman, usually professionally trained, often with children, between the ages of 30 and 50 years old, either still working or possibly staying at home temporarily to raise her children, who wants a place to get away from the office or home, and to be around other women like herself.”
While that would have been pretty accurate a decade ago when I was at Starbucks, it may be somewhat different today. The point is that it’s no accident that Starbucks employees know who their customers are. It has been and remains a key to Starbucks success that they focus on the who not the what. In short, Starbucks sells a customer experience, not a cup of coffee.
By knowing who their customers are, Starbucks creates an experience that suits their customers wants and needs.
Like Starbucks, we need to understand who our customers are and cater to their wants and needs. Because small businesses, like all businesses, and like all customers don’t buy widgets, they buy an experience.